A. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to the field of pricing and specifically to the automated pricing of goods using markdown profiles and markdown budgets in order to reach sales quotas.
B. Background
Effective pricing of goods that are made available for sale is often a complicated task. In order to maximize profits, not only must revenue be optimized, but also the costs of inventory must be taken into account. One strategy used is to periodically reduce the price of the goods or services, effecting a markdown, in order to encourage sales of the goods or services. The amount of the markdown is often set by a sales agent who has had experience in the market for the goods or services and can, using his or her experience and intuition determine the timing and amount of markdowns.
In particular, the sale of seasonal goods poses a high financial risk for merchants. This risk is even more acute in the retail business. Each seasonal article can be assigned a specific sales period. When high-fashion and fashion articles are involved, the merchant wants to have as little remaining stock as possible at the end of the sales period, as it will be difficult to sell this merchandise even with markdowns. In this case, larger remaining stocks translate to higher losses. In addition to fashion articles, such as pink raincoats, this also applies to other goods, such as computer hardware.
For less “fashionable” products, the risk is lower because merchants can store any remaining stock and then try to sell it at the normal price again in the same season of the next year. Because storing inventories is expensive, however, merchants will generally prefer to sell their merchandise by the end of the regular sales period.
Merchants use markdowns to ensure that the merchandise is sold out as completely as possible by the end of a season. Markdowns are price reductions or buyer's incentives aimed at promoting the sale of certain articles. Of course, markdowns reduce the gross margin, which means the revenue merchants earn for selling the merchandise is less than originally planned. Merchants usually plan a certain budget for markdowns that must not be exceeded. Accordingly, markdowns are applied restrictively in retail, which once again increases the risk of remaining stocks at the end of the season.
Therefore, a goal in managing seasonal merchandise can be to limit markdowns to a minimum and apply them at the best suitable time, while ensuring that all or nearly all the merchandise is sold by the end of the season.